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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23793994">Waitin’ On A Sunny Day</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiznakeries/pseuds/quiznakeries'>quiznakeries</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Voltron: Legendary Defender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Hospital, Car Accident, Comatose Keith, M/M, Open/Hopeful Ending</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 22:47:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,134</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23793994</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiznakeries/pseuds/quiznakeries</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
      <p>I’m not liking this one but it’s midnight on posting day so here we are</p>
    </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Keith/Shiro (Voltron)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>43</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Waitin’ On A Sunny Day</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I’m not liking this one but it’s midnight on posting day so here we are</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>
    <strong>Waitin’ on a sunny day</strong>
    <br/>
    <em>Prompt 4: Hospital visit</em>
  </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Dude I don’t know about this.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Shiro adjusts the strap on the backpack slung over his shoulder, and tries to swallow the annoyance steaming up inside him. Hunk is a great guy, and an amazing friend. But when it comes to this, he just doesn’t understand.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Would you please move?” He keeps his voice calm, leveled. And Hunk is a soft person, he breaks under the pressure of Shiro’s demanding tone. He steps away from where he’s been blocking the door, shoulders drooping in defeat.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Shiro doesn’t look at his face, just pushes past and out the door before anyone can say anything else. He darts down the stairs, and out into the grey afternoon drizzle. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>~~</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Four months ago, Shiro was driving back from Newark after dropping off Matt at the airport. It was nice and warm, a perfect summer morning. He’d taken Matt’s old Audi for the more fun driving experience, and “Waitin’ on a sunny day” by Springsteen was playing on the radio. His biggest worry was where he should take himself for breakfast when he got back into town. He was considering whether he should cheat on his diet and indulge in some pancakes or not, when a big crate shook loose from the transport ahead of him, and everything turned upside down.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He woke up in the hospital days later. It was in the middle of the night, and curled up in the armchair next to his bed he found Matt’s younger sister Pidge sleeping. He didn’t want to wake her, but pain was steadily replacing his drowsiness and suddenly, one of the machines surrounding his bed started beeping. It was a shrill sound, cutting straight into his brain and whatever thing he was hooked up to must’ve been evil because the worse his pain got the worse the beeping. He was only vaguely aware of the moving bodies gathering around him, the prodding calls of his name before everything went dark again.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The next time he came to, his father was at his bedside, calloused, aging hands sandwiching one of his own in a tentative hold.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>But when Shiro tried to reach to put his other hand on top, to squeeze and signal to his old man he was alright, all there was was more pain.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He’d lost an arm in the accident, amputated at the bicep. He’d also been speared, cut and slashed by debris to the point of looking like he went through a dryers spin cycle with Hunk’s work knives. One large shard of glass had managed to stab him almost straight through his abdomen, and he’d been in an out of surgery for over twelve hours.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He was stuck in the hospital for weeks.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>His friends and family came by often, so often he had to ask them to tone it down. To leave him alone. Because as much as he appreciated their care and concern, there was something more painful than all his injuries to watch his loved ones look at him the way they did. All that pity, all that sadness he was trying so hard himself to keep at bay. Not that he was really successful. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>A big part of him had quite literally been taken away, and he was feeling that loss. Most of the time, he felt empty, an aching nothingness sitting deep within him and reminding him of what’s been taken from him.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>—</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A few days after he woke up, the police came to take his statement. He couldn’t tell them much, and it became more a matter of them telling him what happened than the other way around. The crate had bounced off the hood of his car, and sent him swerving into a motorcycle coming up beside him. The domino effect had caused two more vehicles to crash, and one middle aged woman driving alone had died at the scene. Shiro and the motorcyclist were severely injured, and two others suffered minor injuries and had both been sent home before Shiro was even out of surgery.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>As for the motorcyclist, he had yet to wake.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Once Shiro started getting well enough to move around, first in a wheelchair and eventually on his own two feet, he made a habit of visiting the stranger who had been unlucky enough to take his bike on the highway that day.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>According to the hospital, he had no family. No emergency contact, no friends who’d showed up looking yet. So Shiro sat with him.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It was strange, but despite this man being a complete stranger, comatose and incapable of communicating, Shiro began to feel close to him. Like he could understand how Shiro was feeling in a way his loved ones just couldn’t.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>His doctor assured him he wasn’t crazy, that it was okay for him to feel however he needed to feel in order to cope with the onslaught of anxiety and depression he’d been experiencing ever since he woke up.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>So they let him be, spending hours upon hours at the strangers bedside. At first, he’d just sit there, watching the stillness of this person, and try to imagine who he was. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>His name was Keith Kogane, according to his drivers license, and he was a twenty six year old based in New York. Slim but in good shape, with long inky locks and sharp features, Shiro couldn’t help but notice how handsome he was. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He began to imagine what it would be like, if Keith would wake up and find him here. Would he think Shiro was a creep, watching over someone he didn’t know? Or would he be grateful, having someone who cared?</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Shiro wondered. What color was Keith’s eyes? What would his voice sound like? His laugh?</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Slowly but surely, an image of Keith started taking shape. An entire imaginary person, and Shiro was the only one who knew him.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He started talking to Keith, telling him stories. He told him how he wished he could still play his guitar, because if he could he’d bring it. Play him a song. He’d hold Keith’s hand when the sadness would wash over him some days. He’d sing soft melodies and tell himself Keith could hear him.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Meanwhile, his family and friends were trying to make sense of him, of how he’d rather spend his days with Keith than with them. He could see why it worried them, what it must have looked like. But Keith’s company, the way Shiro felt in his presence, it calmed his raging heart better than anything. He didn’t care if it made sense.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He still doesn’t care now, two weeks after being discharged. It’s been three months, and he’s been with Keith almost every day. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s raining again today.” He tells Keith when he arrives, and he wonders if maybe the younger man hears him, smells the rain damp denim on him. If Keith is, on some level, aware. He’d like to think so. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Shiro takes off his coat and drapes it over the back of the chair he’s spent more hours than he can count sitting in lately. It’s still weird, putting on and taking off clothes with one arm. Leaving laced up boots behind after thirty years because he can’t tie them anymore. He feels so alien in his own body these days, it’s like it’s not his at all.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“My roommates tried talking to me about you last night.” He sighs when he sits down, drags his hands over his face. “They think it’s unhealthy of me to spend so much time here. They say I should go to therapy instead of talking to a comatose stranger.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Shiro looks at Keith, freshly shaven and peaceful where he lies.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“But being here with you, it’s the only place where I feel normal.” He admits it so much easier like this. It was a lot harder to put into words when his friends tried to pull some sort of intervention after dinner the night before. “When I’m here I don’t feel so lost.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>—</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He keeps visiting Keith, five days a week every week for the entire fall. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>To make his loved ones feel better, he does get into therapy as well, and where he was admittedly a little scared this person would tell him everyone else was right and he should stop what he’s doing, his new therapist told him to continue. She says, if in Keith’s company is where he can reconnect with himself, then he should do that. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Shiro isn’t the only one surprised by that one, and despite their worry, his family and friends decide to leave him be for now. Sometimes, Hunk or Allura will join him, sit outside in the main lobby while he spends an hour or two by Keith’s bedside.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Almost every day this entire autumn, the weather has remained harsh. Windy and grey, with icy rains and hail. Shiro feels a little cheated by nature, because he’s always loved watching the leaves turn, to spend time outdoors surrounded by warm toasty colors and sunshine. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>This year, the leaves were stolen by the strong winds. And sunshine has been far too absent for his liking.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It’s been so long since he’s felt that sweet rush of breathing cold air while simultaneously basking in warm rays of sun. But today, finally, is that day.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It’s early November, Halloween has come and gone and so has Keith’s birthday. Shiro found out in time, and he was there all day with Keith. It was the first time since this all began, that Shiro really thought about Keith’s family. What if there’s someone out there looking for him? Missing him?</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Shiro practically skips down the hall, soles squeaking on the floor and snowflakes melting on his shoulders. He walked all the way here today, sucking up the sun like a sponge in water. Just yesterday, they said on the radio the sun wouldn’t be out yet for at least another week. Imagine his surprise, when he stirred awake in bed to the sun sticking him in the eyes through the blinds.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He turns the corner, smiles and waves to the nurses in the hall he knows by their first names at this point. He doesn’t stop to chat, the skip in his step carrying him quickly to Keith’s room. The door is closed when he gets there, and he slides it open ready to see the lines of warm light from the window striping Keith’s white sheets and giving his little room new life.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Instead, he slides into the room and comes to an abrupt halt.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Shiro stares, brain going blank as he tries to process the image of an empty, freshly made bed where Keith is supposed to be. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Dread comes over him like a big shadow, sucks the oxygen out of the room. For some crazy reason, it’s like he’s losing all control of his sanity again. Like he just lost his arm and woke up in a hospital all over again. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>His hands go numb, and he forgets how to blink.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Mister Shirogane?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The voice startled him, and he whips around to find a wide eyed nurse gaping at him in surprise. He’s seen her before, a few times. Her name is Veronica.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Mister Shirogane.” Veronica tries again, a little more clearly this time. If she’s bothered by the way he stares at her like the answers he seeks will appear in writing on her forehead, she isn’t showing it. “I’m glad to see you’re stopping by today.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Shiro furrows his brow, and he’s about to ask, but the nurse beats him to it.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Mister Kogane left the department this morning. He’s been awake for a few hours now. The first twenty four hours are critical, but he seems to be in good shape. He provided us with a phone number to his father in Arizona, and he’s on his way now.” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Shiro takes the words and clings to them. Keith is awake, and he has someone coming for him. He’s got a real life, a real family to get back to. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“He’s in good spirits.” Veronica continues, and she turns on her heel to start walking down the hall. When she’s nearing the doors to the stairwell, she looks over her shoulder at Shiro. “Oh and, by the way,” Something lights up in Shiro, seeing the smirk on the nurses face. “He’s asking for you.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>—</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It turns out, Keith’s eyes are an impossible indigo blue, and they openly stare at Shiro for a long, long time after he’s introduced himself. And just like he dreamed it would be, even when it’s raw and weak from lack of use, Keith’s voice is warm and earthy and more lovely than any voice Shiro has ever, ever heard.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
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